


a name we give our mistakes

by tanninsandampersands



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: F/M, Gen, Period Typical Attitudes, Some Period-Typical Sexism, Unplanned Pregnancy, World War II, mild hurt no comfort, there's an Oscar Wilde quote for everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanninsandampersands/pseuds/tanninsandampersands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Experience is a name we give our mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a name we give our mistakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corinna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinna/gifts).



Here’s a white-headed boy, all limbs and scrubbed knees and eager eyes. There’s a blur of flying hooves and warm horse’s breath in front of him, and behind – almost as disagreeable – the sharpness of his father’s words and the unfairness of his height and weight. 

His father let’s go of the back of Saint-George’s jacket, but his bulk is still very near and Saint-George tenses for the blow that undoubtedly is about to fall –

but the hand doesn’t punish – instead it strokes his hair and comes to rest lightly on the back of his neck, where summer’s first sunburn hasn’t quite healed.

A stable-hand – quite green around the mouth – has caught the reins and calmed the great mass of horse down.

“I only wanted to ride round the yard!” says Saint-George.

His father actually laughs. “’Course you didn’t.”

 

 

“Angus McRobert is throwing a little party, if your wee hearts can take one more,” he says around his cigarette. “You’re tired? I say, what a notion! What about a sip of coffee and some sort of sinful cake? Something’s got to be open still.”

There’s a biting undercurrent to the breeze, a suggestion of fog drifting around the weak streetlamps, but he’s quite content, the Viscount Saint-George, full of filet mignon and red wine and a couple of cognacs. The hour is late or early, and he’s on a quiet, narrow street, huddling over a match together with a pair of girls, all of them trying to get their cigarette to light before the others’. 

About the very same moment as he cries “Winner!” and puts his cigarette to his lips, a shadow in a nearby doorway coalesces into a solid darkness, which comes closer and further becomes a hand, becomes long fingers closing around the glittering slip of purse hanging on the elbow of one of the girls.

She shrieks as the useless strap of it tears and slips away, as the darkness beside her becomes less dark and more male; her friend aims a kick at his shin but he pushes her away and takes off at a run; and Saint-George, a thousand years of chivalry coursing hotly through his veins, spits out his cigarette and sprints off in pursuit.

Here’s where it gets a bit hazy, because upon capture the pray proves to be stronger and heavier than the hunter. As dirty knuckles grind against Saint-George’s cheekbone, as cobblestones bruise his knees, as he catches hold of the purse and it slips away from between his fingers; as gravel forces its way under his nails and his mouth tastes like blood, as his fedora slips off ungracefully and lands upside down beside him, he resigns himself to defeat and concentrates on memorising the man’s features, and he thinks _at least it’ll make a smashing story_.

The sounds of the man’s running steps die away, and instead the girl whose dress the purse matches comes into his shaky view. “Jerry!” she cries, falls to her knees and strokes his face. “Stupid! Why would you do that? There was only a bob in there anyway.” 

 

 

“Stop the car here, won’t you?” she says, and digs her teeth into her bottom lip.

The girl in his passenger seat looks exactly the same as she’d done when they’d been stepping out, from the shingled hair to the beautifully painted mouth. 

“I say, you don’t have to be nervous,” he says, as much to calm himself, “I think I have a decent idea of what you’re going to tell me. Your letter…” He trails off, and, wordlessly, she lifts her blouse and reveals a stomach very definitely rounded. It had certainly not been that the last time they had been in his car together, in a place just as desolate as this, the last time he had seen her; he sees the events around that meeting quite clearly in his mind’s eye – chucking the empty prophylactic tin away, forgetting to buy more, studiously ignoring the image of Uncle Peter’s forbidding countenance that his conscience threw up as a last line of defence – and now, the sensation of vertigo, of falling, and, superimposed over the girl’s pale face, the image of Uncle Peter’s notebook filled with the names of the indiscretions of Saint-George’s father, his grand-father, his great-grandfather; his half-siblings, aunts and uncles, people he had never known nor really thought about at all – “I say, I’m most frightfully sorry. Feel rotten. Dashed awkward this sort of thing.”

It had been her idea to take the risk. He hadn’t – No, that wasn’t fair. “I’m really, very, very sorry. I’ll take care of everything, don’t you know.” He squeezes the steering wheel, his field of vision narrowing curiously until there was only her face with its tightness and the unspoken challenge in her eyes. 

He drops the girl off at her flat with what he hopes passes for a smile, hopes that it’s natural and warm. He makes a very badly executed turn, half across someone’s lawn, points his car toward London and thinks _Uncle Peter will know what to do_. Best stand himself in front of the avuncular firing squad before he can convince himself not to.

 

 

He gets off the train without help, stumbles a little; rights himself and the sight of the familiar station makes the pit of his stomach quiver with a profound relief the like he’s never felt since that first year at Eton. His parents are a bit further down the platform, fighting their way through the throng of people, as much as a Duke ever has to fight. Saint-George is…home. The cut of his uniform is forcing his shoulders back into a mimicry of assurance; his bones were too tired to achieve it without aid, no matter how willing the spirit was. 

His left side is more bruised than it is flesh-coloured, his arm is in a sling and his ears are still ringing. He’s oddly grateful for his mother’s hug, and for the support of his father’s arm. They’d never seem to care _that_ much, but it had been a plane this time…

Half a day later, the rest of his immediate family has descended upon Denver, and the odour of fuel he’s brought with him is gradually conquered by his mother’s perfume   
He’s got little Roger in his lap, helping him to peel – and eat – orange after orange after orange. Juice has got into the myriad of cuts on Saint-George’s free hand and into the cracks in his lips, but how could he deny Roger anything? He’s so small and singular and so white-blond, and Saint-George imagines him – one day in the future – looking up at him and whining, “Well, Cousin –”

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you think you’re about to die. All he could remember seeing in his mind’s eye was that ever-changing heaving morass of War: destruction, death, blood. The roiling clouds and the shuddering treetops – That, and thinking _this will be the last thing I see_.

 

The bar at the Savoy hasn’t changed at all, despite everything. Here’s still a private booth, still good cognac, still the sounds of champagne bubbles bursting somewhere. Saint-George gazes vaguely at the contents of his tumbler, swirling it up the sides and down again, up and down, until he lifts his eye and gives a start so violent the cognac does slosh over, just a little. 

Here, after all this time, after all that had happened; here, not fifteen feet away; here’s the man who had stolen a girl’s purse, her lipstick, and all of a shilling. He flexes his fingers around his tumbler, the motion somehow feeding the seething anger born in that first visceral moment of muscle-memory. Saint-George is heavier now, wider, with actual muscle-definition, and it would feel so good to get another chance at winning that fight. Of course, the girl was long gone, in a place where she wouldn’t need a purse – 

The thief hovers around the bar and a man who’s starting to sway on his stool, no doubt having designs on the pocketbook that makes its appearance between drinks. Saint-George drains his cognac and slips out of his seat. He thinks many things, but his prevailing thought is, _I’ll give Charles a ring_.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the experimental style, this fic refused to be written in any other. :/ Oh, and I hope the prophylactics/pregnancy part is okay? I know you said innuendo was fine, but the longer I go since writing it, the more I start to fret about it being maybe a step too far. If that’s the case; so sorry, just let me know and I’ll remove it!


End file.
